rest of bolivia pt. 2 - sucre, potosi, uyuni, oruro, la paz

Sucre
The original plan was to stay one night in Cochabamba and take a bus to Sucre the following night. But when we (i continued travelling with Thomas because we had about the same route in mind) got to the bus terminal from Toro Toro, just to ask about the buses, we had to make a quick decision and changed our minds because 'last minute' bus tickets were being sold and we found one for an unbeatable price. So we got on that bus at that moment, without having eaten anything, and woke up in a new place in the early morning hours of the next day.
The first difficulty in Sucre was to find a hostel - it's a very touristic place, full of Europeans, and prices were high for Bolivian standards (which doesn't mean it was high for European standards, but still). But after a while we found a cheap, though not very nice, place right across from the central market. 
It turned out that that was great because Sucre's market is one of the richest and cleanest markets I have seen so far. The breakfast and lunch was cheap and good, but the best part was the juice section. Fresh juices and milkshakes made out of fruits that you're never gonna find in Austria for the price of about 50 euro cents for two glasses. That was definitely the best part of the breakfast every day.
Our first day in Sucre we just spent walking around the city. Sucre is the old capital of Bolivia and due to its white colonial buildings far more beautiful than any other Bolivian city. It's also a very clean place and people are different - all in all it felt more European.
In the afternoon I went to look for another place to stay for the following days. After asking around a little bit I was successful and found a hostel that was a little more expensive but also a lot nicer and it had a kitchen.
 So the next day in the morning we moved with all our stuff and since Thomas was taking Spanish classes I had some time to wander around on my own. I spent some hours drawing, and in the afternoon we went to the market. At that point we were being joined by a French guy, who wasn't staying in our hostel but he spent a lot of time there with us. 
In my time in Sucre I also went to a museum, which had an anthropological section and an exhibition of Bolivian contemporary art. But most of the time I spent walking around, drawing or cooking. I had a good time there but at some point I just felt like there wasn't really any more to do for me, so I decided to move on to Potosi after a few days. At that point Thomas had also given up his Spanish classes, and so we continued to Potosi together.

Potosi
The bus ride from Sucre to Potosi wasn't that long and the landscape was worth being seen. 
When we got there we first had a little difficulty with orientation, but then found a bus from the terminal into direction of the center, where we started looking for a place to stay after a quite exhausting walk uphill for a couple of blocks. But we found a good place, and after dropping our stuff we went to explore the city a little bit.
Potosi is a medium-sized city at an altitude of about 4000 msnm. It has quite a heavy history, having once been one of the richest cities in South America because of the so called 'cerro rico', the 'rich mountain'. Working under the worst of conditions in the colonial times, the miners had made this city as rich as it used to be. They exploited mostly silver, but after years the mountain not only shrank,  but the silver veins disappeared, leaving the city with impressive churches and buildings but little else. 
The mines of the cerro rico are still active and working conditions have improved (most miners now work in cooperatives), and even tourists are being taken into the mountain to see and learn about its history and the miners' life. If you ask me, you can not only argue about the fact that tourists are being taken to a place where the workers suffer from severe illnesses after about 10 years of working, but also about how far working conditions REALLY have improved. The tunnels are as dark and claustrophobic as always and the walls are full of toxics, that you have to breathe in every step you take.
I was very sceptical about doing a tour like this but at the same time I found the intense, and still very present, history interesting. 
Since I couldn't make up my mind if I should do a tour or not, we spent our first morning at a hot spring called the 'ojo del inca' (eye of the inca), a perfectly round lake in the middle of the mountains with thermal water. Potosi was pretty fucking cold, but swimming in the warm water and then being exposed to the cold wind felt relaxing and cleansing.
And after a lot of thinking I finally decided to go for the mines tour in the afternoon. I made it to the agency just in time and landed in a multicultural group of four girls. Our guide was a miner himself, and it made me feel at least a little better that he didn't have to work in those terrible mines as long as there were tourists like us. 
I'd already heard from several people that visiting the mines is one of the memorable experiences in Bolivia, and I think they were right. It really was an intense experience - we spent nearly two hours inside the mines of the cerro rico. The only light that existed was the one from our headlamps - without them we were surrounded by the darkest of darkness. Some of the walls were covered in shades of blue, green and yellow, all of that making the already stuffy air not the healthiest to breathe. The ceiling of the tunnels was partly so low that we almost had to crawl and I hit my head several times (thank god we had helmets).
We met one working miner and all I'm going to say about that is, that I'm happy that we didn't meet any more. 
After those hours in the mines I definitely wasn't in the happiest of moods, but at the end I think I'm glad I did it. But at the same time I don't think I would do it again.
After the second freezing cold night in Potosi, we left for Uyuni on a Sunday morning.

Unyuni

laguna colorada

The road to Uyuni led through a marvelous mountain landscape and ended in a high, desert like flatland where the ugly town of Uyuni lay. It's one of those places that mainly exist for tourists, in that case because of the big salt desert 'Salar de Uyuni'. 
We got there some time in the afternoon, and after dropping our stuff at the first cheap hostel we found, we went to book a classic three-day-tour through the salar and surrounding desert/volcanic landscape. 
The tour started on the following day in the late morning hours and we ended up being in a group with two Japanese and two French. Age-wise we were completely mixed, ranging from a 63-year-old Frenchman being the oldest to me being the youngest with my 19 years. But during the following days we found out once more how unimportant age is when it comes to traveling and we all got along well, including our super friendly guide and driver.
After leaving Uyuni our first stop was the 'train cemetery', a place in the desert where they had just dumped their old iron trains. It looked cool, but also had something of a horror movie scenario. After that we drove into the salar, the probably most impressive part of the trip. We first visited the salt hotel (completely built out of salt, but not being used as a hotel anymore), where we also had lunch out of the back of our truck, looking at the endless white salt that surrounded us. 
Our next stop was an island in the middle of the salt desert, overgrown by huge cactus plants. At that point we really were in the middle of nothing but salt, only being able to make out some mountains in the far distance.
At the island we also had time to take our 'crazy pictures', and then moved on out of the salar to the village where we would spent our first night. Our hotel was nice, partly made out of salt as well, and we were accompanied there by a huge group of Coreans. The dinner was good and all of us passed out pretty early after having had a long day and two more in front of us.
On the second day we left earlier in the morning, because we had a long way to kill that day. We went south, stopping at lakes and big volcanic rock formations. We entered some national park, which was quite funny because the guard was still sleeping when we got there. We had to wake him up and out of the house came a sleepy, drunk guy, almost falling over his empty beer cans from the night before. 
Our lunch we had again out of the back of the truck, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We made it down almost to Chile, visiting a turquoise-white lake at the bottom of a volcano which was half on the Bolivian, half on the Chilenean side.
Then we went back up north, passing some geysers, more rock formations and an active volcano. 
The place where we spent our second night was freezing cold and only existed as a lodging place for the tours. Which means that other than a couple hospedajes there was nothing there. The best thing about that was the night sky, which was incredibly beautiful.
On our last day we got up early in the morning and started to make our way back up to the town of Uyuni. We stopped at the Laguna Colorada, a kind of reddish lake with a ton of flamingos hanging around there, some more rock formations and other lakes. 
We got back to town some time in the afternoon, and I was ready to go back to La Paz and to Peru from there. But it shouldn't be that easy..
The first thing I found out was, that there were no buses leaving to La Paz because of a miners' strike. When I went to ask the bus company what's going on and to change my bus ticket if necessary, the office was closed. So I went to the ATM to get some cash. That didn't work. When I wanted to pay the internet where I had to go to check my bank account, my wallet was gone. Including my bus ticket, my bank card and the last 7 Bolivianos I had. Together with a police officer I went back to the bus agency's office to get my us ticket back. Luckily they were open, and even said that the bus would leave. But they weren't sure if it would really get to Oruro (the town where I had to stop before going to La Paz) and it was a night bus. It was still a better option than selling the bus ticket and being stuck in ugly Uyuni without money or anything. 
So I got on the bus, and it actually did arrive in Oruro in the middle of the night.

Oruro
When I got into the bus terminal, there was a guy selling tickets to La Paz. But when I asked him if the bus would actually get all the way to La Paz, he couldn't really give me an answer. And I still didn't have any money so I had to wait for the money exchange to open anyways (I had some Soles left). I made myself comfortable next to the police office and tried to sleep. Head on the backpack, on a freezing cold floor. 
Next to me was a couple, waiting for the morning to come. I talked with them a little bit and they were super worried about me. Before they left they borrowed me some money to get to La Paz. And bought me a warm drink, whatever the hell it was. 
When daytime finally came, I thought that the worst was over and that there had to be a bus to La Paz sooner or later. More later as I had to find out...the miners kept blocking the roads and no one knew when anything. So I spent my day at the marvellous Oruro bus terminal, waiting for something to change. Some time in the afternoon  met an Australian couple, with which waiting got a little easier. At least I could leave the terminal without my backpack and get something to eat.
Josh and Emma originally wanted to cross the border to the Chilenean coast, but the border was closed because of the earthquakes there. It was the same as going to La Paz: nobody knew anything, but everybody said that "soon there will be buses". Other than that not much exciting happened all day long. Until some one, first very quietly, and almost hard to hear, started selling tickets to La Paz. I almost couldn't believe it (and actually didn't until I arrived in La Paz), but apparently two buses just got in and the roads were more or less clear. I got more positive when, after a while, more and more bus companies started to sell their tickets, and was excited when the bus finally left. Only one more stop on the way to Peru!

La Paz
If you ask me, there was not a single sign of a road block all the way, and we arrived safely. Only that we didn't arrive at the bus terminal, but outside because "officially" there were still no buses. 
But I could wait inside for my couchsurfing host to pick me up, and while I was waiting I met another guardian angel, who gave me some money so I didn't have to change my Soles for one day. Or two, as my plans got delayed by a massive hangover and a lost camera.
More than that is not to say about my second visit to La Paz.

rest of bolivia pt. 1 - samaipata, cochabamba, toro toro

Since I was working in a bar in Rurre, it was clear that my last night there had to be celebrated. That led to me sleeping in way longer than planned, and then having to say goodbye to everybody with quite a hangover. But I made it to my flight in time (which wasn't that hard because it got delayed anyways) and spent an horrible hour on a small airplane above the wide and empty lowlands of Bolivia.
I was continuing my travels with an English guy, Scott, and after arriving in Trinidad we made our way to the bus terminal to find a night bus to Santa Cruz. We bought our tickets and had then a couple of hours in Trinidad, which we spent walking around. Fortunately I felt better by then, but there's pretty much nothing interesting in Trini.
The bus to Sta. Cruz was definitely not the best one in my life (I don't sleep that well with a drunk guy sitting behind me, coughing all night) but we made it.
Since I'd heard that Sta. Cruz isn't the nicest of places, all we did was find a taxi to the 'bus stop' from which we could go to the nice little town of Samaipata.
The taxi driver had no idea where to go, but he was nice and eventually he brought us to the right place. From there we took a shared taxi to Samaipata. It was a 3 hour ride, but I slept most of it, still suffering from my hangover.

Samaipata
When we got to Samaipata we were surprised how quiet it was. It kind of felt like there were no people there, and no busy life. Also all the streets around the main square were under construction, so there was no traffic at all ( not that one would need any kind of transportation in a place as small as this). It was easy to find the hostel, which was the place where I was supposed to be to work a month before, and after settling down we cooked some lunch and walked around the town. There was a 'mirador' (viewpoint) and several small, but fancy and European shops, and that was pretty much it.
I still didn't know what exactly I wanted to do in Samaipata and it took me a while to decide. But then I ended up going to some ruins called 'el fuerte', which were pretty impressive, and some beautiful waterfalls. I took a long walk above the waterfalls and was surprised how much it looked like Austria - I almost felt like I was in my home country.
My afternoons in Samaipata I spent with painting - the owners of the hostel saw my sketchbook the first day, and liked it, and offered me to paint something in exchange for a room. So I made a draft for a mural in the kitchen, and now there's my artwork on their wall (which is pretty cool). And i didn't have to pay for any of the nights I stayed there, including the delicious breakfast with whole wheat bread and fresh fruits.
But there really wasn't that much to do in Samaipata, and I was a little bit in a rush to travel the rest of Bolivia without overstaying my visa. So after a couple days of nice and quiet I felt like I was ready again for a big city - Cochabamba.

Cochabamba
To get from Samaipata to Cochabamba, without having to go back to Santa Cruz, was an interesting thing to do. First I had to go to an even smaller town than Samaipata called Mairana. The departure time of the bus changed depending on the person I asked, so I wanted to get there early. Luckily I caught a bus so I didn't have to take a taxi and arrived in Mairana super early. I found a restaurant that sold the bus tickets, but when I bought it I noticed that I was the only person on the bus. I had to wait for almost 2 hours, but no more people came within that time. When we left there was one other person with me in the back, and a whole family sitting in the driver's cabin of the bus. I was a little nervous, but along the way we collected and dropped off some more people and after some hours we arrived safely in Cochabamba. Since it was the middle of the night I could sleep on the bus until morning - that seemed like a great solution to me except that it was freezing cold.
When I got up my plan was to go first to the bus station to collect some information and a map of the city (that only got interrupted by a delicious breakfast on the street). I also had a good friend there, but since my phone had given up working in Rurre i couldn't get a hold of him.
I spent the early morning hours looking for a hostel with a reasonable price and after i finally found one i just dropped my bag there and left for the city.
The first thing I did, and one of the only things you can do in Cochabamba besides eating, is to walk up to their enormous Jesus statue which overlooks pretty much the whole city (it's even bigger than the one in Rio de Janeiro) Getting up there was more that exhausting, and the heat started to kill me. And since I had left everything at the hostel (which wasn't really a hostel, but more just a cheap place to crash) I didn't have to wait long for my sunburn.
At the top of the hill, and right next to Jesus' feet I met some guys that spoke German. It turned out that they were Swiss, German and Austrian, and they were the only white tourists I met in Cocha. After a while we decided to go and get lunch together, but that plan got interrupted by some Texan missionaries, from which I learned never to admit to speak English at the bottom of a giant Jesus and to people that wear 'I love Jesus'-shirts. What else they said I don't know, because my mind was too occupied with finding the fastest and least rude way to get away from them.
The way down was a lot better than the way up, and the next task was to find a public phone to call my friend. Usually you can find a phone on every corner but, of course, when you need one there are none.
After a while I found it though, and my friend agreed to meet us for lunch. He actually showed up on time, and I was super happy to see him because he reminded me of the good times I had in Rurre.
We had lunch at the market and then I split up with the German-speaking guys and David (my Bolivian friend) took me on a little tour through the city and its markets, including the place where the buses to Toro Toro leave. Until a week before that I had no idea that Toro Toro exists nor what it was. But a good friend of mine in Rurre told me about it and then I looked it up in a 2008 travel guide. It said something about the only house in town having electricity 24/7 was the church and buses leaving twice a week.
The reality in 2014 was a little different though, and when we got to the bus station a grand group of tourists awaited us. It turned out that buses now were leaving once or twice a day and it was an easy thing to say 'yes' to the plan of going there the next day.
I spent the evening at my David's house (mostly playing with his monkey Jack, which is his pet) and as Bolivians are they invited me to dinner, for which they served delicious homemade empanadas.
And as Bolivian guys are, David insisted on taking me back to my hostel safely and after finally getting there I passed out immediately after this long day.
The next morning I spent walking around and reading before getting lunch with David. After that we went to get my stuff and he brought me to the Toro Toro bus station.
My original plan was to find the German guy again because he had said he might come with me. But since I couldn't find their hostel, I thought I was going by myself after all and was quite surprised when Andi and Thomas suddenly showed up at the bus stop. It felt good and I was looking forward to this unexpected trip.

Toro Toro
The bus ride to Toro Toro werd about 5 hours on a bumpy road, but I had a lot of food with me and was in the middle of a good book so I didn't mind.
We stayed at the first place we found, which was basic but nice, and for a little extra money (which the owner forgot to charge us for in the end anyways) we could use the kitchen too.
Toro Toro seemed like a pretty dead place, especially after a big and busy city like Cochabamba, and at the hour of 9.30 pm it was impossible to find something to eat.
The next day we wanted to do a hike into the canyon, and since tourism is 'improving' rapidly we had to go with a guide. At first I was a little disappointed because I had expected Toro Toro being the kind of place where you can just go on your own, but then the tour was good and the guide showed us things which we definitely would have missed without him. Like the dinosaur tracks. And some ancient wall paintings. And he explained us a lot about the plants and how they were, and are, being used for medical purposes.
The hike itself was beautiful as well, and since we didn't meet any other people  we were just surrounded by the incredible silence of nature and our own noises. We also went down into the canyon to take a break and a swim at some beautiful waterfalls, before walking the exhausting steps back up.
The rest of the day we spend with buying food for dinner (the Toro Toro market is the emptiest I've seen in all my time in South America) and cooking, and reading.
On the following day we had planned to go to a place called 'cementario de tortugas' (turtle cemetary), this time on our own. The morning was slow because it rained, but when it stopped we started the short, but very nice walk to the 'cemetery'. The landscape in Toro Toro is quite interesting, because you're able to see all the lines and layers of the mountains' formation.
When we got to the cemetery, the only person there was a little  energetic girl. When she saw us she took us to the little museum, and then went to get her mom while we were looking around. The museum was new and it seemed like it still hasn't been all finished, but it showed some interesting information about the dinosaurs and mountains of the area. There were also some fossils including (what a surprise) turtles. But the best part about going there was the little girl's mom, an original Bolivian 'cholita', who the showed us around the place of the archaeological excavation. It was a hilly field of earth in different intense shades of red, where they had found multiple turtle fossils and were still discovering new ones. It was pretty impressive, if you ask me.
On the way back I once more noticed the many different colours the landscape here had, going through all shades of grey, green, purple and red. I loved it.
Back at our hostel everybody had a little alone time before we cooked again, had dinner on the rooftop and played cards.
This was our last night in Toro Toro and when we got up the next day we only went down to the river for a little bit before taking the bus back to Cochabamba.

time to move on

Tomorrow I'm leaving Rurrenabaque. I still have a lot of stories to tell, from this place that became a home to me. my traditional Bolivian carneval for example. And my tourist trip to the Pampas of yucuma. And another two days working in communities. But they have to wait to be written.
Today I will just enjoy my last day here, the company of my family and the comfort of everything being taken care of. It feels strange to be leaving, but I also know that it's time for me to go on. I will definitely miss this little town though, with its motos rolling around, its friendly people and just everything else I've gotten so used to in the last couple of weeks. 
I have so many memories to take with me and that I will never forget, and hopefully my life will bring me back here some day.

embocada, asuncion, charque, torewa; bolivia

Things were going pretty well in Rurre and through working at the clinic I got the chance to go on a trip to some communities. I didn’t really have much of an idea what was going to happen and what we were going to do or IF I could really go, but they actually took me, and it was a great experience.

When I went to the clinic on Wednesday morning, things were packed and ready to go. We had two big boxes full of drugs, sponsored by the German embassy, and a whole bunch of other bags, with even more pills. I was a little nervous, I didn’t even know who all would go on the trip and what I was supposed to do, but then I met Ilka and Anna and Nikolai. I didn’t even know that there were Germans working with the clinic too, but apparently Ilka was the one why all those trips even take place.  And Anna and Nikolai are two doctors who came straight to Bolivia after working 6 months in Nepal. I learned that besides two Bolivian doctors, a dentist, a pharmacist, three park rangers and a cook, the three of them were coming on the trip too, and I was happy to have someone to connect to.

It took us a while to get everything together and stored on the boat, but then we were ready to go. I was excited and happy and the trip could begin.

But since we are still in Bolivia, nothing works straight and after a while on the river we remembered that we forgot the gloves. Though rarely used in the clinic, we couldn’t go on a three-day-trip without them and so we had to turn around, go back to Rurre and get the gloves.

After we got them we were way later than planned (what a surprise!), but we were finally on our way to our first stop: Embocada.

Embocada

I’ve always loved being on a boat and so I really enjoyed this journey. Besides, it was finally something different than a bus, of which I’ve seen so many in the last couple months. We went about 2 hours upriver, taking a turn to the left at the end, leaving the big Rio Beni and continuing on the smaller Rio Quiquibay where our first stop would be. I slept a little on the boat, and time flew by. Soon we saw some people on the shore and stopped. They were from the community of Embocada, but their village got hit by the flood too and so the families had left their houses and spread out. The family on the shore was living under a plastic sheet put over some branches.

When we arrived we first went to see their village – most of the houses got destroyed, the school building didn’t exist anymore and the church was a chaos of mud and benches. We tried to figure out what would be the best way to work, and while that we had some delicious pomelos – of course we foreigners got really excited about that, especially when they showed us how to cut the pomelo so you can drink the juice directly out of the fruit.

After a while we sent the family to get the others and went to get the drugs from the boat (that took a while, because we kind of couldn’t find the way back and got lost). Since we had no other choice we had to set up our attention desk under a palm tree.

And then work started. I still had no idea what was going to happen, so at this community I mostly watched and took pictures. And helped the kids take their pills.

It was my first experience in a place like that and it was a very interesting one. More than just a few people didn’t really know how old they were or their birthday. Almost all of the women had at least one kid in a sling around her neck and one at her hand. Most of them didn’t look very healthy, but were still smiling and talking. We gave out vaccinations and vitamins to the kids, and then treatment for whatever problems they had. I soon learned that it was mostly the same – problems with the stomach, colds and the flu, and back pains from their hard, daily work. Also the dentist checked and cleaned their teeth.

There were not very many people there that day, and so it didn’t take us too long to finish our work in this community, put the stuff back in the boat and continue our way up the river.

Asuncion

Our second stop was Asuncion, a more developed and quite big community.

When we arrived, we first had to bring all our stuff up the hill. Fortunately the people there, who had already been awaiting us and watching our arrival, helped us and working all together it didn’t take too long.

The community has a nice open space where we first put our stuff. It looked nice, but here as well, the flood hit and some houses were just missing. Still, they even had running water and a health post, which was decided to be our “home” for the stay. So we brought our things there, and then, since it was too late to start work that day, we split up to go for walks, talk to the people or play soccer. I enjoyed the time, and also talking to my German companions was good. And again we go to eat some delicious fruit - freshly picked coconut this time.

In the evening we had a good dinner and then sat together with our flashlight and some wine, before putting our tents up in the health post and going to sleep. We would have a long day tomorrow.

In the morning we got up, had breakfast, took the tents down, set up our tables and then waited for the people to come. Of course they were late, and they were a lot.

That day I started working with Felipe, the Bolivian doctor, and helped him with writing the prescriptions (which would be my job for the rest of the trip). It was really interesting, because it was just completely different than in Austria. Every second person got a prescription for Antibiotics and I still wonder if they remembered all the pills they were supposed to take and give to their children. Some of them seemed kind of confused and in this community we also had our first communication problems – some people just didn’t speak any Spanish and we had to find someone to translate for us. And again, some of the kids were in bad health condition, mainly because of the missing nutrition.

At the end of our attention in Asuncion we gathered the kids to give out tooth brushes and tooth paste and did a little workshop about those things, accompanied by those nice little pills that make your teeth blue. He kids had a lot of fun, and we did too.

But then it was time for us to leave again and pay our next visit.

Charque

By the time we got to charque I was already used to my new job, but I was also tired.

There we set our tables up in the school, and work began again. But what was nice was that charque too had a lot of good fruits.

We spent the afternoon working and then set up our camp on the beach. Originally we had planned to go to the next community that day, but we were behind in time and in the afternoon we also ran out of one of the most important medications we had. While having hot chocolate, dinner and wine in our camp, we also decided that it would be best if Antonio went back to Rurre early in the morning to get the medication, before we would move on to our next and last community. I went to bed early that night, but the others (especially the rangers) had some kind of alcohol with them and when they left around 5 am to go back to Rurre it took them forever to get going and I’m pretty sure they were still drunk. They were super loud and it didn’t really sound like they knew what they were doing.

When I got up a little later it was quiet again and our boat was gone. Before breakfast I went to get some fruits with Felipe. We got along and got used to each other working together. And I liked talking to him because he knew a lot about life in the communities and plants around, because he’d lived in them as a kid himself. So besides taking a bunch of pomelos for the others, he also got me some cacao (the best!) and sugar cane.

After breakfast and getting our stuff together we waited for our drunken adventurers to come back. As expected it took them just a little bit longer than they said it would but eventually they came and we went to our fourth and last community.

Torewa

Torewa is supposed to be a big community but when we got there we hardly saw any people. But they had a school and actual teachers too and there were even some kids in class.

Still, we had to wait until people came, and not many came. But there was finally some work for me as a paramedic. One kid had burned his foot and another had a big cut in his toe. Both of them tried to fix it their way – the burn was wrapped in a banana leaf and some dirty cloth and the toe was sewn together with some dirty thread. I was excited about having some work to do, and Felipe was too and so we cleaned the wounds and put clean bandages on them. They’re probably not gonna stay clean for very long but it was worth a try.

The attention in torewa didn’t take as long as expected, and after we had lunch in the school we were ready to go back to Rurre.

I was exhausted, but very happy. I’ve learned and seen so much in those three days that I couldn’t even summarize it. For me a dream had come true, and I’m so glad I got to make this experience. It was definitely one of a different kind.

rurrenabaque, bolivia - pt. 3

At first the plan had been to go to La Paz together and from there I would have gone to Samaipata to work. But the roads were more than bad and I really did not want to go on that road again. So I asked for flight and found one that wasn’t too expensive and would actually take me closer to Samaipata than taking a bus to La Paz. But for that flight I’d have had to wait a couple of days (and at that point I really did not want to spend any more time in Rurre), and so I also had to call the people in Samaipata to tell them I’d be late. They were fine with it, and so I went back to the airline office to buy my ticket to get out of this place. But the office was just closing and they wouldn’t let me in. But they assured me that I could buy the ticket in the morning of the next day.

That calmed me down a little, but I knew I could only relax when I really had the ticket.

Ivan and Sofia were even more in a rush to get out of Rurre and, crazy as they were, they decided to go by bus. I couldn’t believe buses would seriously leave the town, but they said they would the next day.

Still, it was raining and none of us was in their best mood. The only positive thing was that Sofia asked the owner of her house if I could stay there for a couple of days after she left, and he agreed.

Early next morning Ivan and I went to Philip’s house once again to take a shower. Then we split, because he had to get his stuff ready to leave and I had to go buy that plane ticket. Soon it started raining, and as soon as I got to the office I was soaked. To make it worse, they told me that there were no flights that day. Well, there were flights but no tickets because planes were going to be used for something that had to do with the flooding (at that point not only Rurre, but also several towns around the area, had been announced as national disaster zone) and for some reason they had not known that the night before. I was crushed and just couldn’t believe it. And I was pissed at myself because I didn’t buy the ticket right away, and at the airline because they wouldn’t sell it to me now.

Soaked as I was, I first went to get breakfast because I figured I might be in a better mood with some food in my stomach and might be able to find a solution for the problem of getting out of this fucking town.

I decided then to go to the other airline company, even though I knew it would be much more expensive. But at that point I just didn’t care.

Since their office had gotten badly flooded too, the only way to get information was to go to the airport. But there is this one house in Rurre, that has a huge sign of the company on the wall, and so, hoping that they might have some information too, I went there to ask. So I talked to the guy there, explained him my situation and he immediately suggested me several things that I could do and even offered me to take me to the airport. I did all that in my best Spanish, until I found out that he spoke perfect English which made it a little embarrassing. But it also felt really good to be able to speak some English after all the Spanish of the last weeks and Diego also gave me some hope to find another possibility to leave.

After that I went to the Navy Base (yes, Bolivia does have a Navy.) and talked to a very nice officer if they could fly me out with one of the cargo planes that were coming in from Trinidad to bring food and other things. He also was very helpful and told me that I should come back when the weather was better (rain was still pouring down) and then I could go. I was excited about that possibility and decided to find a dry place to finish my book and wait for better weather.

There, I was already in a better mood and the day just kept getting better when I asked somewhere if I could just sit down under the roof and read my book, and was offered tea, dry clothes and coming inside. I had gotten a little cold, still being in my wet clothes, and after that I felt much better. The only thing I still didn’t have was a ticket out of Rurre.

I spent the afternoon reading, talking to Diego and at the Navy Base, where they still couldn’t tell me anything new or secure me a seat in the plane (even though they SAID I could go for sure, doesn’t mean it would actually be that way). Later I went to Luna Lounge, a bar that is owned by the same person who also owns the house where I was staying. Since he was letting me stay for free, I offered to help out at the bar, but that night I was just a regular customer. Except that he came over to my table at some point and randomly asked me if I wanted to eat something and then came back with a delicious veggie omelet. And later, when I decided I’d had enough beer for the night, he even took me home.

On the next day my goal was to have a ticket and a date to leave, so I could finally relax and enjoy the last days here, however many that would be. The situation in Rurre was still sad – there was still no water, people were living in tents on the streets or in schools, and there were rumors going around that the river would rise again. But still, everybody was friendly and people took their losses with incredible strength and they also had started cleaning the streets from all the mud.

First thing in the morning I went to the Navy again, but they still couldn’t tell me anything new. They just said I’d have to wait until the plane gets in but no one knew when that would be. And I didn’t really want to spend my day waiting there, especially because I still didn’t believe that they would really have a seat for me (there were tons of people waiting to get out..). I then figured that my best shot would still be to go to the airport and get a ticket from the other airline. Fortunately I ran into Diego again and he took me there without hesitating. The other airline was more expensive, but they had a ticket a week later that was affordable and I was going to buy it online as soon as I had talked to the people in Samaipata. But that online-buying-thing didn’t work out so I had to go to the airport again. I took a moto and asked the driver to wait for me outside while I would buy the ticket. That day wasn’t as good as the day before and when I got to the airport the light went out so I had to wait. My taxi left, and when I finally, finally had this stupid ticket there were no other taxis there either. I had just started walking when a car came by (a rare sight here) and they took me back without charging me.

I was happy and relieved and went to Luna to put my stuff there and then go and grab something to eat.

From here on I get a little confused with the days, but basically what happened was this: I started to help out at Luna at night and one day I accidentally stopped by while the family there was just about to have lunch. They invited me to eat with them and from there on I have lunch with them pretty much every day. In the beginning I felt uncomfortable, because I just couldn’t understand why exactly they would not only let me stay in their house for free, but also feed me with lots of food every day (sometimes they even made an extra plate for me without meat after Jacky (the wife) had figured out that I’m not the biggest meat eater), but they treated me like a family member and I was happy to have a place where I could hang out.

Working at the bar was a challenge in the beginning, not just because it was my first time doing anything like that but also because I had to do it all in Spanish. But the bartender (Romer) was very patient with me, and after a few days I had gotten used to this new daily routine of having lunch with the family and working in the evening. Just the staying up late every night took me a little longer to get used to.

A lot of the days I also spend some time with Diego and while taking me out to nice (and more local) places in town he explained me a lot about Rurre and Bolivian culture in general, which I really enjoyed. He knew almost every person in Rurre and so he also found me the opportunity to volunteer at a clinic project, founded years ago by an American doctor.

By then I’d already been thinking about staying a little longer, because I had just gotten comfortable here and I felt so welcome in the Luna-family. But I felt like I couldn’t let the people in Samaipata down, so I was still planning on leaving.

Until I changed my mind and just stayed.

The regular customers at Luna, the family and Diego were all happy about my decision, and, the most important thing, I felt really good about it too. By then I had something to do in the mornings (the clinic), not only ate lunch at Luna but also helped cooking and enjoyed having my own place to stay.

Days passed by, now all kind of in a blur, but I was happy (still am) and after all that had happened I finally started to like Rurreanabaque.

rurrenabaque, bolivia - pt.2

The day we came back to Rurre was also the day of the annual fiesta of the town. After we had changed into clean and drier clothes, we went to my “old hostel”. It was sad to see that the place was in a bad condition and they had to get all the people out. Now there were only two guys there that had just come back from a jungle trip. But it was good to see them again, and together we went to the main square to see what was going on there.

The fiesta was going on but due to the floodings and the fact that it was still raining, there were not as many people there as I had expected. But still, there was music playing, little stands selling food and goodies and people in traditional clothing dancing. I’d never seen this before and so I was fascinated by the colorful costumes that reminded me a little of happy robots or something with all the silver and shiny colors. I didn’t know that Bolivia had such a strong culture in dancing and, with some more food and beer, we enjoyed the fiesta.

Later that night we also went to bar to meet Philip and the girls, who were already on their second day of escape celebrations. But I was tired, so we didn’t stay long and as soon as I saw my bed, with the big mosquito net like a sky hanging over it, I fell into a happy sleep.

In the morning I got proven true that the breakfast at the hostel is delicious – 2 big pancakes with the loved “dulce de leche” and a ton of fresh fruits. I was so full after that, that I didn’t really get hungry all the rest of the day.

After breakfast Ivan and I went to ask around if we could help somehow. So many people had lost their houses and the schools were fully used as shelters for the families and their leftover-belongings. It was difficult to find useful information because there was nothing really organized. We had to ask and walk around a lot until we finally found a place where we could help cooking lunch for 130 people. It felt good to be able to do at least something but it still wasn’t my best day – I felt kind of lost and the picture of the whole town was just a sad one. I also really needed time for myself, after nonstop being with Ivan, but at that time I hadn’t realized that yet. In the afternoon we played Risk at the hostel, and then went to the school again for cooking dinner. We also played with the kids, and it was a gift to see them smile after all that had happened. I think some of them didn’t really realize what happened, but even the adults took their losses with an amazingly positive attitude.

In the evening we went to Philip’s house because he had water. But what I didn’t know was that the way to get there was full of mud and without light. We also didn’t exactly know where it was and I was everything else than in the mood for a searching party in the dark. In other words, I was in a pretty shitty mood at that moment and as soon as we got to the house, I shut myself out with headphones and a book.

I enjoyed the shower in the morning, and then some quiet minutes with my book and a cigarette, enjoying the great view you had over the town from Philip’s house. After that I actually realized that I needed time for myself and so we split up and I went to get breakfast and kept reading until I had finished the book (it always helps when you just want to shut out the world).

In the afternoon we were supposed to go back to the cerro. For a while we didn’t even know if it would be possible because the river was still high. But Philip found some crazy people that would take us up there anyways, and I have to admit that I wasn’t too happy about the fact. The problem was that I still had all my stuff at the cerro, so I didn’t really have a choice but go up again. Also a lot of cleaning work was waiting for us.

I was really scared to go back on a boat and really happy when it was over. The water at the cerro had gone down and you could actually walk on the trail to the lodges and the dormitory.

We then spent the following two days cleaning the temple and the kitchen, which was a shitload of hard work. We had to get all the mud out and clean everything that had been inside. Besides that we didn’t do much but eat, and hoping that the water wouldn’t rise again (at that time it kept rising and going back, but nothing too bad).

On the second day we got surprised by Daniel and a group of American tourists who wanted to go mushroom hunting. Because of that we had to split the work, and I went over to the kitchen to clean and serve lunch. At least they gave us something to eat too.

In the evening Philip and two more people arrived to do another Ayuahuaska ceremony. Ivan and I were exhausted from the work and also disappointed not to be invited to the ceremony and so we spent the evening with playing cards and going to bed early.

the next day was a nice one and I finally go to ask Philip some things about the plants that grew around the houses. We walked around for a bit and I was in a better mood, hoping that the weather would stay like this and that I would get the chance to go for some walks. Philip left that day, but now another Argentinean volunteer stayed with us, who cleaned the dorm whil we were on “vacation”.

In the afternoon I hiked up the cerro, a steep trail full of spiky trees and swarms of mosquitoes, to a mirador from where you had a great view over the forest and the river. Still, because of the mosquitoes I didn’t stay too long and was happy to get back down to the hammock and my book. I actually had some more time for myself now, because I couldn’t keep up with the two Argentineans speaking Spanish and I was too tired to try.

Ivan and I wanted to go to one of the communities the next day, but we got woken up by a heavy rain (yes, again) and it had gotten impossible again to go for walks. So we had another calm day, played cards, cooked and read, waiting for the weather to get better.

At that point we kinda had given up for anything else but rain to happen, and were ready to go back to Rurre and out of there after all.

But we had to wait til Monday, when Philip was supposed to come and pick us up. But unfortunately that didn’t happen. We were listening for a boat to come all day, but got disappointed.

Since the days all passed the same, I can’t say when exactly the water got up again. But it did. It started rising, just as the week before, and we couldn’t believe our eyes. We already saw it coming at night and put our stuff up to the second floor of the dorm once again, but I was still shocked when I woke up in the morning and water was even higher than the first time. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry, like most of the time I spent there. On some days I could laugh about our situation, but on some days I just hid in my bed.

Anyways, the dorm had been transformed into an island again and we were trapped there once more. And all the cleaning work had been for nothing.

We saved the stove and the rest of the kitchen utensils that we could find on the top of the table in the dining area and most of the time only one person went there every day because it just sucked. On the worst day I had to go, and I made my way to cook lunch in a bikini because everything else would have been senseless. The only problem with that was that the mosquitoes took advantage of my uncovered skin and I definitely did not appreciate that too much. But it was better that wet and sticky clothes.

Days passed by – we put three beds together, close to the window, where we spent pretty much all the time. There was not much to do but reading, talking and playing cards, until we all got sick of it.

The biggest problem we had after a while was that none of us had been prepared to stay for that long. So we didn’t have that much food. We had rice and pasta and some instant soups. And no salt. We ate once or twice a day, but it wasn’t really satisfying. Still, it was the highlight of the day.

For dessert we had mate, that bitter herb you can make strong tea out of. At least it was hot, and after I got used to the taste it wasn’t that bad anymore either.

Every day we were listening for boats, but most of the one’s we heard were just in our heads. Or they were helicopters that took their turns several times a day. A couple times we actually agreed to have heard a boat, but no one came to our place and it was still impossible to get to the Beni with the big backpacks.

On one of the days we decided to try to leave the next day. We packed our stuff in the morning, and were just about to get going, when we heard a motor coming closer. We couldn’t believe our eyes when the boat really came to us, with Daniel aboard. We almost ran to get on the boat, but he told us to wait because the boat was going to pick up some other people upriver and would come back for us then. We had no choice but go back and wait. At least he had brought some cookies and crackers for us and we ate them within seconds. You have no idea how good simple things like that can taste after a diet of rice without salt.

We waited and waited and the boat didn’t come back. Also the little river that had made it possible for the boat to get close to the houses before had gone down so that was not possible anymore. At some point we decided to try our luck ourselves and make our way to the Beni.

It sucked even more than the first time. Not only because we had more stuff, packed up in an inflatable boat, but also because now it wasn’t possible to swim. Instead we had to go through mud as high as our hips, and each step made us sink or fall again. But on the other hand, if you ever dreamt about playing in a lake of mud as a kind, you dream would have come true here. At some point we just let the boat go and Daniel caught it a little further down, sitting in his little kayak and taking the stuff to the port, while we took the trail. Or what was left of it.

But we made it, and then we waited again. The boat that was supposed to pick us up never came so we were just hoping for another one to pass by. After a while Daniel decided to go up the mountain to call Philip to come and get us, and of course a boat came while he was gone. They were simple fishermen that turned around when they saw us, and we even waited some time for Daniel to come back. But at some point our saviors didn’t want to wait anymore and we also didn’t want to let the chance of getting out of there go by. So we left Daniel behind, feeling bad but at the same time being sure that he would find another boat.

The fishermen were super nice, and for the first time in a while I felt that good things were starting to happen again. We were finally on the way back to town, ate some papaya and chocolate (the actual fruit, not the processed chocolate), and they didn’t even charge us.

But our luck turned out to be short-lived that day, when we found out that there was still no water and the roads out of town were more than bad.

Still, we had a place to put our stuff and to stay for the night (the Argentinean girl lived in a small house a little out of town and had an extra bed) and once again we ate whatever we could find.

After that we went back to town to figure out what to do next – that turned out to be a little difficult, but after another fucked up day my luck finally turned around after all.

But all about that will be told in the next part.

rurrenabaque, bolivia - pt. 1

Rurrenabaque is a nice little town in the jungle of Bolivia. It has no mountains, a lot of fresh fruit and is located directly at the shore of the big Rio Beni. 
I arrived there some time in the morning and me and the only other foreigner on the bus went to look for a hostel together. I knew where I wanted to go, but I wanted to walk. My friend decided to take a taxi, which is here no more that a small motorbike. A quite interesting experience with a big backpack, as I would learn later myself. 
the hostel was small, and super nice. It had a kitchen (but no gas), clean rooms and a hammock area. And, what is most important, all the people there were nice. Right at the beginning I met a Russian girl, with who I spent a lot of time the following days. 
I spent part of my first day with collecting information about the tours that you can make here (which I really don’t like doing). There are a lot of different agencies that offer tours to the pampas (about 3 hours from Rurre) and the jungle (into the madidi National Park, which has one of the richest variety in flora and fauna in the world). 
But since the main reason for my coming to Rurrenabaque was to see the place, where a friend of mine had lived for 6 months, and meet the shaman that he worked with. So I also went to their office where they told me that I might be able to work there as a volunteer as well and help them out with a big group of people that was supposed to come for a diet a few days later. But I’d still have some time until then, so I kept thinking to do a tour but I couldn’t really make up my mind (as always). I spent the afternoon thinking, lying in a hammock, talking to the people at the hostel and I also went to the pool. There I kinda made my decision to go on a tour and work after that, so I went to the agency and told them I would be in for the next day. But for some reason that didn’t really make me happy, and I went to the office of my friend’s place (the cerro brujo) again and asked if they knew anything new. Which they did. They told me I could go to the lodges (10 minutes up river from the town) the day after, so I went back to find the guy from the tour agency to tell him that I had changed my mind. Luckily he was okay with that, and I was really looking forward to going to the cerro. 

When I woke up the next day it was raining. Not just a little bit, but a lot. I went to buy food and had to wade through the water on the streets, which was higher than my ankles. What I thought was pretty amazing was, that the people were still riding their motos through the water. 
After buying food I went to the office and waited there. But as I had already thought it was not possible to go to the cerro that day because the river was too high for the boats to go up. So I spent the day in the office, happy to have a computer and a dry place to hang out. For the first time in forever I read some news from Austria, and kept myself occupied that way. Sometime in the afternoon Daniel, the guy from the office, came and asked me if I had a camera with me. I may not be the typical tourist, but I’m still a foreigner and so I always do. And that was when I found out that just a couple streets away landslides had come down from the mountains and destroyed parts of the streets and some houses. Daniel wanted to go and take pictures, and I went with him. 
The situation was more than sad – houses were flooded or ripped down, everything was full of mud and people got injured. When I was there, there were also the local tv station and a lot of people saving what was left in their houses or starting to clean up. I almost couldn’t bear it, especially when I saw the tv interviewing someone who had lost part of their family in the landslide. If I would have known, that that had just been the beginning! 

I went back to the hostel to wait until it would be possible to go up the river. For some reason I didn’t even really mind and had a great time staying there. I had lots of time to read and talk to the people and one night we made huge barbeque and played Risk until late at night. I also went to a mirador with the Russian girl, to do at least something kind of productive, and walked around town a lot. I was just enjoying the people and the good spirits of the place. 
Still, I was eager to get to the cerro, and three days later it was finally time. I met up with Philip, the shaman, and two chilenean girls who wanted to stay there for the night. We took one of the long, narrow boats and arrived at the cerro shortly afterwards. 

After we had settled down and put our backpacks away, we decided to take a walk to a waterfall. When we left, we still had daylight and so going through the rivers, and over the trees that had fallen down, was okay. But after a while it got dark, and when we arrived at the waterfall we couldn’t really see much of it. Still, it was nice and a little different kind of a jungle tour. But the way back was not as pleasant - we were being followed by mosquitoes and I got bitten by a huge ant, which hurt a lot. And also finding your steps in the dark wasn’t easy, especially because every second tree is full of spines or insects. I was in a mood where I just wanted to get back to the cabins as soon as possible. After a while we saw a small light moving our direction – Ivan, the Argentinean volunteer, with a candle. I immediately felt better and knew that I would get along with him. 
We then had some dinner together and then I went to bed soon, all excited about finally being at the cerro and looking forward to the time I would be spending there. 

When I woke up the following day, it was raining. Not too bad, but enough to make it impossible for the girls to leave. We spent the day playing games, reading, and in the afternoon Philip came to talk to me about having an Ayahuaska ceremony. I’ve heard about it a couple times on my way down to Bolivia, but I still didn’t know a lot about it and until that day I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try it. But when Philip asked me, I decided to take the chance for that experience and the decision felt good. 
In the late afternoon we all went to get some rest before the ceremony, since it would take up quite some time of the night. 

My Ayuahuaska experience was quite interesting, but since it’s very personal I’m not going to give details here. What I can say though, is that when I woke up the next morning, I felt great. The air was fresh and clean, and my body felt light and I was aware of the beautiful nature around me. We had some delicious fruit salad for breakfast and then talked about our experiences. 
But still, it wasn’t possible for the girls to leave. In fact, water had risen over night and even the trail to the temple wasn’t passable. They made an attempt to get back in the afternoon, but returned after a couple of hours, being completely wet and muddy. So it was another quiet day with not much to do. 
What I did do though, was that I cleaned the entire kitchen, which turned out being a big mistake. 

When I went to bed that night, the water had gotten quite high. Still, when the girls came to get me to go to another cabin that was higher up, I agreed but didn’t think it would be necessary. We also put our stuff up on some stairs, just in case the water would really rise to the floor level of the dorm (which I still didn’t think would happen). I should be proved wrong. 

In the morning we were flooded. Everything that used to be plain area was water. The bathrooms were nothing but water, my recently cleaned kitchen had water up to our hips and stuff floating around, and in the dorm, which is built on poles, the water was higher than our ankles. 
When I saw all that I just went straight back to bed. 
After a while, when the others started to wake up as well, one of the girls and I decided to go to the dorm to get some clothes and safe some stuff. We almost had to swim. Our companion was an inflatable boat, which we used to carry some stuff for the day, and the things we could find in the kitchen. Luckily, the gas and stove were safe, but we had lost some other things (like food, for example). But after the first shock, we actually started to have some fun, and I just felt like we were in a movie. 
We put the most important stuff on our cabin’s porch and, again, didn’t do much that day. None of us wanted to go back to the water, so we could do nothing but wait. Sometime in the afternoon Ivan showed up at our cabin. We all were relieved that he was fine, because his cabin was a little further up the trail, on the other side of a river, and we hadn’t been able to get there in the morning. 

The next day the water had gotten down a little, but we were still kind of trapped in the cabin. So the day passed by, just as the one before. It was dark inside the cabin, but raining outside, so I spent my time reading and sleeping, in a state of mind that was something between being awake and being asleep. We cooked once or twice a day, but since I had only brought food for myself and the other had not been planning on staying more than a day, we knew we couldn’t stay for too long before we would run out of food. I don’t really remember how many days we spent there, but either the next day or the one after that, the girls and Philip, backpack in the inflatable boat, made another attempt to leave, and this time they were successful. Ivan and I were going to leave the next day, mainly because we were hoping for the water to go down and the river to calm down a little more and because we still had a little bit of food. 

We got up in the morning, cleaned a little and then started the adventure of getting out of the jungle. We made it as far as to the temple before we realized that we had to cross one of the rivers swimming (even though the bridge was destroyed, you normally were able to walk through the river with water no higher than up to your knees). Ivan first went to find the boat, which was gone, and then we decided to put our stuff in one of those plastic things that are normally used for doing laundry. We put on life vests, and pushing our things in front of us through the water, we swam. Being cold in the beginning, the water was okay after we got used to it and we also were able to walk some parts of the trail. 
When we got to the little port, we saw the Rio Beni for the first time since the flooding. It was scary – the currents were rapid, the waves high, and it was full of wood and large trees. 
We sat down in the boat that was there to wait for one that would take us back to Rurre. Two boats passed, but they were going the wrong way. Time passed and nothing happened. After 6 hours, when we were just about to go back to the cabin and try again tomorrow, we saw a boat. It was going upriver as well but they saw us and waved at us that they would come back and get us. On the boat I wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t have been better to wait another day – it was definitely the scariest part of all. 

But we made it. We arrived in Rurre in the late afternoon, walking through the streets like from another world, dirty, wet, and hungry. We bought the first food we could find, and just then made our way to the hostel. It was a different one than the one I stayed in last time, but it was close and supposed to have better breakfast. What it didn’t have was water. The flooding hit the town pretty hard as well and most of the houses were without water and the streets were full of mud. 
Still, I was just happy to be back in civilization.